Paul Portesi’s Twitter exhortations are why I first started thinking about this. “Informational” is his word.
If some street hustler challenges you to a game of three card monte you don’t need to bother to play, just hand him the money, not because you’re going to lose but because you owe him for the insight: he selected you. Whatever he saw in you everyone sees in you, from the dumb blonde at the bar to your elderly father you’ve dismissed as out of touch, the only person who doesn’t see it is you, which is why you fell for it. Even mirrors fail you. Hence a sketch.
The Last Psychiatrist
The information you need is not in the interaction with the con man. The information you need is that you were selected. You need to know that you are an obvious mark.
Seeing this is hard. It’s easy to get caught up in the bustle, the distractions.
The bustle, the distractions. They are deliberate. That, too, is information you need.
“You” meaning me.
One last quote from that blog post from The Last Psychiatrist:
The con worked. Of course it worked: they selected you.
The Last Psychiatrist
Ouch.
He continues. Look at this sentence in the context of 2020’s presidential race and what is put on offer for consumption on Twitter. Probably elsewhere, too, but I don’t look elsewhere.
“Well, not authority– power. You can’t deny their power is massive, but of course I’m not a stupid, I don’t think it’s legitimate.” I’m sorry, no, you are stupid. You’ll let it have power over you in exchange for the right to brag that you know its not legitimate.
“They” are the side whose opinion you have been trained to think is wrong. If you have been assigned opinions that cause you to self-identify as a Democrat, you seize on something about Trump and shout gleefully about how wrong he is. Sorry, you lose. That’s the short con. Have you identified the long con in politics yet?
Not to pick on Democrats. Have you been assigned to the Republican camp? Republicans do the same thing. Pick someone or some idea. Pelosi, say. You have fallen for the short con. Identify the long con.
You probably can’t even identify the conman, let alone spot the game. (I’m talking to me now, not you. But if the shoe fits. . . .) It goes without saying that you don’t see yourself as the mark.
“The only winning strategy is to not play the game.” No. The winning strategy is to play the “spot the con” game. You will lose most of the time at first, just as new poker players lose most of the time. You’re buying information about yourself and the world around you.
The way to smell a fraud is to have skin in the game. Taleb says he is dumb without skin in the game. And if you’re focused on a benefit, it’s time to suspect that you’re missing something critical. Especially when the benefit is being advertised to you. Equilibrium demands an offsetting cost. If you can’t see the cost, you’re paying it.
But the important point is not that you believe this to be true, the point is that you want this to be true.
The Last Psychiatrist delivers a spear straight to the chest.
And let’s do a little reflection here, Mr. Laughs. How much of this thinking and self-improvement and work on self is a short con in some long con I can’t see?
The confidence with which she knows how her perception of self-esteem affects everything in life, “it couldn’t be more crucial” is not an insight, it is not wisdom gained from years of therapy: she has been conned, it is society’s long con so her pocket can be picked.
Good God, Dr. L. Psychiatrist. Is there no end to the chunks of truth you ask me to swallow?
This can become a “turtles all the way down” trap. Any glee felt at achieving enlightenment is the clue. You’ve fallen for something. It’s false to say to yourself “Well, I sure am glad that I figured that out. Now I know the truth. Everything is squared away and I’m safe, so let me now turn my attention to perfecting another facet of myself.” The reason you know that’s true is that before the Blinding Realization you just had, you didn’t know that the Blinding Realization existed.
What else do you not know? What else can be delivered to you by the long con?
How to avoid turtle life? All I can do is predict, with fair accuracy, that there is no profit and no power for someone else if I live and die according to Stoic principles. Start from a way of life that cannot be gamed.